The Technology Behind The VFX In Hugo

By Efrain Rovira

What an exciting time for Pixomondo who won their first Academy Award for their visual effects work on "Hugo" at the 84th Academy Awards! Visual effects supervisor Ben Grossmann and digital effects supervisor Alex Henning of Pixomondo, along with Hugo's VFX supervisor Rob Legato and special effects supervisor Joss Williams, walked away with a shiny piece of hardware for the Best Visual Effects Oscar.

We are so proud to see our customers up on stage and receive such a prestigious award here at Dell. We strive to help them succeed in an increasingly competitive and demanding industry by providing them with powerful computing solutions for creating and delivering award-winning work.

Pixomondo is an international visual effects company with a network of 11 studios around the world including Los Angeles, Burbank, Toronto, London, Beijing, Shanghai, Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart, and they have all standardized on Dell technology including workstations, servers, storage and Dell deployment services. Every office relies on award winning Dell Precision workstations for creating visual effects for some of the top films. In fact, more than 480 artists at nine of Pixomondo's eleven facilities across Germany, the US, Canada, China and the UK used Dell workstations to create the 854 stereo 3D VFX shots featured in Hugo.

Adam Watkins, lead CG for Pixomondo and recipient of a VES (Visual Effects Society) Award for his contributions to Hugo, recently told us "I can honestly say Dell Precision workstations are the number one recommendation I've made to other visual effects professionals over the years. For visual effects work, we need cutting-edge technology and performance while working tough and crazy deadlines. I have been delighted, and sometimes saved, by every Dell workstation I've ever used, anywhere, for 20 plus shows and counting! It's one technology that I know I can consistently count on."

The company currently has more than 60 Dell Precision T5500 tower workstations in London; a mixture of Dell Precision T3500 and T5500 workstations in Stuttgart, Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg; T1600 and T3500 workstations in Shanghai and Beijing; and a mix of T3500 and T5500 workstations in the Los Angeles office.

We look forward to continuing our relationship with Pixomondo and providing them with the solutions to produce more break-through output in less time and dedicate all of their energy to the arts and not IT.